how to plan for retirement

The statistics are showing that more people are remaining alone and unmarried in the United States and many of them have no children or significant “other” in their lives. This has a lot of implications when it comes to how these “singles” will enter their elder years and face the challenges of failing health and maintain their financial independence.

One area that needs to be considered, is the question of retirement and how to plan for it when a person lives alone and is single.

I will be posting two parts of the following article, written by Steven M. Greenwood, P.C., a specialist in retirement planning. steve@caestatelaw.com

A March report by BMO Financial Group’s BMO Retirement Institute (http://tinyurl.com/c75r4r4) explains why more seniors are finding themselves living alone in their golden years, and it offers some advice on how to deal with it. I encourage you to download the report and share it with clients.”

Singlehood Is on the Rise

‘According to a 2011 U.S. Census Bureau report, 43% of people ages 65 and over are single, either due to the death of a spouse (27%), divorce (12%), or simply because they never married (4%).

These numbers are sure to rise as baby boomers reach retirement age, especially among women, who tend to outlive men by a large margin and whose salaries and pensions tend to be lower than those of men.

Single retirees have a 40-50% higher cost of living compared to married couples, and single women tend to have half the money saved for retirement than that of couples in the same age bracket.

Trying to maintain the same standard of living on one person’s pension instead of two can be daunting. There are also potentially additional expenses that a newly single person can incur when a spouse is no longer there to help with cooking, cleaning, household maintenance, or other necessary functions.”‘

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